0:00

Have you ever bought a house only to discover

0:02

that the quick renovations the previous

0:04

owner made were more trouble than

0:06

they were worth ? Today we dive

0:09

into Scott Wachter's story , a homeowner

0:11

who thought he was getting a dream deal

0:13

, only to find himself in a nightmare of shoddy

0:16

fixes . Scott's home purchase

0:18

seemed perfect on the surface New floors

0:20

, sparkling toilets , freshly caulked

0:22

bathrooms and modern LED fixtures . Floors

0:26

, sparkling toilets , freshly caulked bathrooms and modern LED fixtures . But as the dust

0:28

settled , so did the reality . These hasty renovations were not very good quality

0:30

. We'll discuss the red flags to

0:32

watch for , the common pitfalls of quick

0:34

renovations and how you can ensure that your

0:36

investment holds real value . Join

0:38

us as Scott shares his journey through the trials

0:41

and tribulations of correcting

0:43

this corner cutting and learn how to

0:45

avoid these costly mistakes . This

0:47

episode is packed with insights that could save

0:49

you a fortune and a whole lot

0:52

of headaches . I'm George Siegel

0:54

, and this is Homeowners Be Aware

0:56

, the podcast that teaches you everything

0:59

you need to know about being a homeowner

1:01

. Scott , thank you

1:03

so much for joining me today . Well

1:05

, thank you . Yeah , glad

1:07

to have you on Now . I had put out a shout

1:09

out looking for people that had interesting home

1:12

buying experiences , and yours is kind of

1:14

different . I mean , I figured it could be a

1:16

problem , but I never really thought

1:18

about how that carries over

1:20

, because you like to think the person putting your house

1:23

together and getting it ready knows

1:25

what they're doing and has real value in what

1:27

they're putting in there . So tell us your story . What

1:29

happened ?

1:30

So I'm in Toronto , which , if you're not familiar

1:32

with , is a very hot real estate

1:34

market . It's very competitive

1:37

, there's a lot going on , and

1:39

I went from so

1:43

I am a first-time home buyer in

1:45

toronto and I

1:47

did it at a time , uh , I

1:49

did it literally in march 2020 , like

1:51

the , the doors closed

1:53

on everything and I'm like , yeah , no , best

1:56

time to do this , best time

1:58

to do this is now , uh , and

2:00

so there was a lot of just chaos and confusion

2:03

and we maybe spent considerably

2:05

less than we would have because everyone was

2:07

confused . But part of that

2:09

problem was that this home

2:11

I'm in right now was an

2:13

investment property that owned

2:15

by a real estate agent who

2:18

was also keeping

2:20

his mom in it like it was . His mom was there just

2:22

to keep it clean and tidy , but it was an

2:24

investment property , which means he did a lot

2:26

of house flipping , nonsense , and

2:29

I I've invented the character

2:31

for the general contractor , because all the work was

2:33

done by one general contractor . You

2:35

can tell not no specialists

2:38

, no plumbers , no electricians , one

2:40

j , one gc , and he's just

2:42

a deranged man .

2:43

I call until uncle walter , because

2:48

, uh , the , the number of things I've had

2:50

to go through fixing yeah now , first

2:52

of all , did you have a home inspection ?

2:54

yes , we did do a home inspection

2:56

, like it is part of a row of townhouses so

2:58

it's pretty easy to establish what's

3:00

going on . And we did spot , you

3:03

know , we basically spotted some loose shingles

3:05

. The problem is not anything deeply

3:07

structural , it's just oh , this

3:09

is the cheapest thing

3:12

, like that . Literally one of my toilets

3:14

broke and I get the plumber and

3:16

it's like oh yeah , this is the cheapest one you can get

3:18

from Costco . They break all the time this

3:20

part . I've got a replacement valve

3:23

for it , we'll swap it . But if

3:25

it breaks again , I'm telling you to buy

3:27

a new toilet . It's not worth replacing twice

3:29

, fixing twice .

3:31

Yeah , especially is it a one story or two story

3:33

, two story . The toilets

3:35

being bad on the second floor can be a major

3:37

disaster . Oh yeah , exactly

3:40

, Exactly Now . Did you

3:42

talk to other people in the complex ? Did

3:44

you talk to some of the neighbors and see how

3:46

theirs was , or were there ? Everyone is

3:48

designed by somebody different . This guy just replaced

3:50

the interior of yours maintain

4:05

the outside .

4:06

The interior is up to everyone . I've been in a couple of people's

4:08

other people's homes completely different looking . Since then , three

4:10

different units have sold and I've definitely snooped

4:12

them , like snooped the pictures

4:14

to be like , no , what unit ? One is the

4:16

only one that's shaped differently . What do they get

4:18

? And it's just their living

4:21

room's slightly bigger .

4:23

You know , the integrity of the person doing the job

4:26

is really so important

4:28

, because when somebody's flipping it , it's like

4:30

if I'm selling my house and

4:32

you come in as the buyer and you point out two or

4:34

three things that you say need to be fixed , I'm

4:36

not going to go get top shelf repairs

4:38

. I'm going to try to save as much money as

4:40

possible . So if a flipper is doing

4:42

that and all they're really concerned

4:45

about is their profit margin

4:47

, that's not necessarily in your best

4:49

interest .

4:51

Well , and I mean both my in-laws

4:54

died fairly close together , so I had to oversee preparing

4:58

that house for sale . And , yeah

5:01

, I bought 40 gallons of white

5:03

paint and did all of every room

5:05

in that myself , except one

5:08

part where I needed a big ladder and I just paid a

5:10

guy . But

5:12

I had to redo , like I had to redo the bathroom

5:14

, had to redo it . It was an ugly old pink seafoam

5:16

, seashell , pink tile

5:18

thing and I'm like , just just

5:21

grab one of those one pieces . You know , you

5:23

know the ones , you know the ones , and we

5:25

all do it . In

5:29

so many cases my frustration is

5:31

just the install . We had vinyl

5:33

floors , the slatted vinyl floors , and

5:36

they were glued to the outside

5:38

edge .

5:39

So when it gets cold the

5:41

entire room is pulling

5:43

away to the edge found

5:49

, because it

5:51

sounds like once you find one thing , it

5:54

kind of reveals that , okay , there's

5:56

no way they were just cheap here , and

5:58

then you start finding a lot of other stuff .

6:01

Oh yeah , no , we've , we've , we've had to

6:03

deal with some of the plumbing

6:05

for the sink . Just connections

6:07

between different pipes were very weird . It's

6:09

like okay , this is , this is a gasket

6:12

that I don't know what . Why is this fit with a gasket

6:15

? I need and I don't want to just

6:17

tear out plumbing and replace

6:19

it found something , figured it out . Uh

6:21

, there was some issues with

6:23

, uh , you know , the kitchen sink

6:26

fosket being loose and being

6:28

installed so weird you can't even get up there with the

6:30

proper tools . It's , it's

6:32

, it just keeps going and it's like , again

6:35

, none of these would have broken the deal , none

6:37

of these . But if I'd , even

6:39

, but if I'd had the moment to just

6:41

shine a flashlight at some of the , at

6:43

anything , I'd be like all right , you got to . You

6:45

got to knock another five off for me to fix this

6:48

.

6:49

Yeah , no , it's always easy to to

6:51

fall in love when you're walking through a place

6:53

and you're drawn to the

6:55

area Maybe the fact that it's

6:57

different , that it's new , that you're actually

6:59

going to own it . So how would you go

7:02

in with better eyes on

7:04

something like that ? Do you think you could have spent more

7:06

time there ? Do you think you could have maybe

7:08

brought in ? It sounds like your inspector

7:10

should have caught a lot of this stuff .

7:12

I mean , I think part of it , part

7:14

of it was just the stress of the pandemic . Everyone

7:17

was like oh , what do we do ? How

7:23

long do we stay More time working the hand sanitizer

7:25

than checking some of the other things

7:27

? Like my current bone of contention and it's a thing I

7:29

got to fix is just in the bathroom

7:31

. There's one of these . You know one

7:33

piece , led fixtures . You know the throwaway

7:35

ones . This is going to burn out in three more years

7:38

if I'm lucky . And I got to , and

7:40

I got to . I got to chunk an entire fixture and

7:42

I'm like well , that's dumb . I would have demanded

7:45

a replacement before I moved in .

7:48

Have you done anything to hold the seller

7:50

accountable ? Did

7:52

you do any reviews on his website ? Did you contact him and say what did you just

7:54

buy the cheapest crap you could find to stick in here

7:56

? Is there any kind of engagement there ?

7:59

So because the guy's a realtor

8:01

, I've just been because the original

8:03

owner was a realtor . I've just been telling my real

8:05

estate guy . It's like , dude , this guy's this

8:07

everything I've had to do . It's

8:10

like , yeah , you know , just make Leslie

8:12

, let's make sure everyone knows this guy is

8:14

, you know , a pain

8:16

in the butt and will try to hose

8:18

you and glue your floors

8:20

in place .

8:22

Yeah , you know , we should let people know that

8:25

are listening . It's not just flippers . A lot of times

8:27

it's builders . I think a lot of builders

8:29

count the nickels so

8:32

when their basic stuff

8:34

might be garbage and then you ask

8:36

for better quality and then

8:38

you upgrade things around the

8:40

house . But you have to be careful what part of the process

8:43

you do that so you don't get change orders . You kind of have

8:45

to do that early in the process . But when you're

8:47

getting a house from a flipper you

8:49

really have to know their reputation and

8:51

what they do . And it might even pay to bring

8:54

in somebody that's a designer

8:56

or somebody that has some experience in those areas

8:58

that can look at the floor and go , no , no

9:00

, they didn't do this right . Or look

9:03

at this , this doesn't line up right , these windows aren't

9:05

square , this isn't right .

9:07

Why did they fill their front garden

9:09

with rocks ? This is another

9:11

one . This is this is one I fixed . Is that , for

9:14

whatever reason , the mother got sick of gardening out

9:16

front , so she didn't . So

9:19

, rather than just let that section go to grass

9:21

, just just let that go to grass . Now

9:23

, an entire flower bed , you

9:25

know six by eight flower bed out front . Just

9:28

dumped gravel , just

9:30

gravel . Spent a whole day picking

9:32

stones . I'm still picking stones .

9:35

Yeah , that's tough to . It's tough to get rid of those . I mean

9:37

, they can be a good asset if they're

9:39

used right , but if they're just using it to fill

9:41

valuable bedding space , that's

9:43

kind of frustrating . No , it was , it

9:45

was . I had a just gravel

9:48

garden . Now

9:50

did you purchase a home warranty of any type

9:52

, or are you just pretty much

9:54

in this on your own ? Pretty much on this on

9:56

my own ? Yeah , and then what's your

9:58

long term projection of how long you'll stay in

10:00

this place ?

10:01

I , it's Toronto . I can't afford anything

10:04

else ever .

10:06

So you're there for life .

10:07

Yeah , yeah .

10:08

Well , that's maybe won't be a problem , but yeah , that's

10:10

annoying though , and we're

10:13

talking about it . So there are certain things you

10:15

have to disclose when you sell your house . I

10:17

talk about some of the issues I've had with my house

10:19

, and the main problem we had

10:21

is the superintendent for

10:23

the builder . It was his last job with the

10:25

company . So he clearly had

10:27

checked out . Oh yeah , and

10:30

that's frustrating , and so I always tell

10:32

buyers you can't

10:34

rush into something unless you're a major

10:36

builder , good at contracting

10:38

yourself and can go in and fix things

10:40

. You really need to spend some time there

10:42

and get as much information as possible , because

10:45

you shouldn't reward somebody playing

10:47

hot potato and throwing it to you and then running

10:50

yeah , yeah , exactly

10:52

. So what would you have done

10:54

differently ?

10:55

I think part of it was there

10:57

were . I think I could have definitely

11:00

been harder on the plumbing issues

11:02

, like part of it was we had a we

11:04

. This unit came with a garbage disposal

11:07

. These aren't legal in Toronto

11:09

. You can't have one in there , really

11:11

. Yeah , it's um I

11:14

. It's basically too much of a strain

11:16

on the water

11:18

treatment system and you get it . You

11:21

get london style fatbergs otherwise . So

11:23

they just ban garbage disposals . You

11:25

got to go through the compost system is

11:27

what it is so

11:30

municipal , municipal compost pickup

11:32

is part of the deal . Is the ups , is the upshot

11:34

so what happens there , though ?

11:36

I mean , is that something that they it's

11:38

, if it's illegal when

11:40

you go to sell the house ? Is that something you're going to have to get

11:43

rid of ?

11:43

well , part of the negotiation was is you can't

11:45

sell me this house until you were

11:47

till you pull it out . And he said , no

11:50

, no , no , I will , we'll knock another . Whatever

11:52

we'll , we'll knock another five

11:54

thousand off the thing , and I'm like to

11:57

, and you can pay a guy to fix it . And I think as part

12:00

of that , I needed to just be able to

12:02

go down the entire side of the plumbing for the kitchen

12:04

sink and say , actually , whole new kitchen sink

12:06

, you're giving me a whole new kitchen sink for this . Not

12:08

just , not just getting rid of this

12:10

, uh , this contraband , uh house home appliance

12:12

. Have you gotten rid of this contraband home appliance ? Have

12:14

you gotten rid of it ? Oh yeah , no , I got rid of it right

12:17

away . I used it once

12:19

just to hear the sound . I used

12:21

it to destroy some tea leaves . I

12:24

shouldn't say that Bylaw officer's

12:27

going to chase me .

12:28

They might , especially in Canada . I had

12:30

a guest on recently who was

12:32

telling me that if somebody is a real contractor

12:35

or doing legitimate work at your house , they're

12:37

not going and buying the parts . I think it was

12:39

a plumber that told me this . They're not buying the parts at

12:41

Home Depot or Lowe's , they're going to a plumbing

12:43

supply store . They're going up

12:46

a notch because that's really the I

12:49

guess we could say lower end for

12:51

the consumer , but a real contractor

12:53

is not buying their stuff there .

12:55

Yeah , that's right . That's usually

12:57

the case . My day job is

12:59

involved in creating podcasts for

13:01

a group of lighting distributors

13:04

. We don't deal with Home Depot . You deal with

13:06

your local guy . You buy your cans

13:09

and tubes from a regional

13:11

member of Nailed right .

13:13

So at least you should easily be able to get rid of that

13:15

light fixture in the bathroom .

13:17

Oh yeah , no , I well , he also my

13:19

, my , my , because the

13:21

whole this situation is distributed

13:24

across North America . My home base

13:26

, where I go to do work most , sometimes

13:28

some days a week , also takes in e-waste

13:30

. So sometimes I just walk in there and I've

13:33

dropped 50 AA batteries

13:35

in the bin . For them , it's great

13:37

.

13:38

It's like hey , I killed two hard drives .

13:40

Here you go .

13:41

Nice , nice , do you have any idea if

13:43

there's anything going on behind the walls ? Okay

13:45

, you , the obvious stuff you can see . Right , they didn't

13:47

do . They didn't have the A team in

13:49

there doing this work . So what about wiring

13:51

? What about pipes connected behind walls

13:54

? What about the stuff that could really cost you

13:56

a lot of money ?

13:57

So part of it was again . Part of the deal

13:59

was this had an old-fashioned

14:01

fuse box , actual fuse box for

14:03

the main electrical panel , and

14:06

I'm like , all right , well , I'm going to get a guy

14:08

in to switch that to proper

14:10

breakers . And he did a full breakdown and

14:12

tested everything while he was in there

14:14

.

14:15

Okay , that's good because that's important . You know , a lot

14:17

of times if they're shortchanging you there

14:20

, you know that can lead to fires , that

14:22

can lead to all kinds of problems and

14:24

I guess now you have to just be a little concerned . You

14:27

know one of the things that we learned if

14:29

they don't put the seal on the toilet

14:31

right upstairs , they

14:33

leak . They do , and yeah

14:36

, so anybody with an upstairs bathroom . It's

14:39

worth having a plumber come and check that

14:41

.

14:41

If you're wondering , because the surprise

14:43

of having it happen is not good yeah

14:46

, exactly , and you know I unrelated

14:49

, I had an issue with my , uh , my washing

14:51

machine , not related to this flipper , but it was like

14:53

, yeah , no , a solenoid in the valves

14:56

blew and I was leaking

14:58

water into

15:00

my garage . I just had this

15:02

during the winter . So I had just this sheet

15:05

, this stalactite

15:07

of water just

15:09

constantly , just frozen water

15:12

on one side of my garage and I didn't you

15:14

know , I don't , I park outside , I

15:16

only go , I'm only in there , I'm only

15:18

in there to deal with garbage , really during

15:21

the winter , and I'm not . And so one day , it's

15:23

like one day , it's fine , open

15:26

the garage . Two days later , that's a lot of water

15:28

. I don't think I can close my garage

15:30

because the ice is pushing the

15:33

railing , you could have turned

15:35

it into a skating rink possibly for some

15:38

of the neighborhood kids . Oh yeah , for sure

15:40

, yeah , but you know the risk .

15:41

There , too , a lot of laundry rooms . You

15:43

know they really should have some type of drain in

15:46

the floor , and that's another thing

15:48

to look for .

15:49

That's mandated in Canada actually Floor

15:51

drainage . Anywhere

15:54

where you're doing laundry has to have a floor drain so

15:56

the drain wasn't working no , so

15:58

this is , this is the dishwasher . This is the dishwasher

16:00

oh , the dishwasher they said the washing machine

16:02

, sorry , yeah sorry , I might have said washing machine

16:04

, the dishwasher three and

16:06

the valve blew out , electrical

16:09

. You know the actual mag , the actual

16:11

electrical and one valve blew out . So

16:13

it's just constantly letting water in .

16:17

Do you sit ?

16:18

there and wonder what's next . Oh

16:20

, I have my suspicions . I

16:22

have my suspicions . I'm hoping it's something

16:24

really trivial , like I've got , um , I've

16:26

got an awning for my backyard that

16:28

is automatic , like it's on motor , it's

16:31

motorized . Those were apparently

16:33

installed , not part of the original build

16:35

, but like five years later , apparently , one

16:38

of one of the originals . One of the people

16:40

to first move in was like yeah , took us like

16:42

five years of arguing about what color

16:44

they should be , because they all had to

16:46

match . Of course , because we're in a townhouse complex

16:49

, I don't think I can paint my garage

16:51

door any color , but that specific shade

16:53

of brown , pretty sure , but

16:55

like a five-year fight and everyone's like

16:57

and he

17:00

, uh , denny the guy , he , he lived

17:02

, he , he'd been living here 50 years . And he's

17:04

like oh wait , yours still works , yours

17:06

might be the last one that does that and

17:10

if it breaks I

17:12

will probably

17:14

take it down and I will not be allowed to

17:16

add a new one , because it would be a different

17:18

color , even though no one else has one

17:21

anymore .

17:22

So there are HOA rules in

17:24

the place . Do you have to pay homeowners association dues

17:26

every month ? I do have to pay dues

17:29

.

17:29

It's the rules aren't too

17:31

bad , 're not I ? I know I

17:33

. It's not america bad . I hear

17:35

the horror stories from america . It's literally , uh

17:38

, like the rules are basically um

17:40

, don't paint your doors weird colors

17:43

. Uh , don't have seven dogs

17:45

I think it's some number of pets

17:48

and I think , oh

17:50

, I got in trouble for having a sign out during the

17:52

election . Nice

17:55

, no

17:58

political signs .

17:58

Well , you know , a lot of the problem is not having adequate reserves

18:01

in case there's a problem . And when

18:04

in my last documentary film we interviewed a woman

18:06

in Panama City who lived in a duplex

18:08

and both

18:11

took a lot of damage but the person who shared

18:13

the other side , the other owner , chose

18:16

to sell out for pennies on the dollar and they

18:18

weren't going to rebuild it , so her insurance

18:20

company wouldn't let her rebuild her side . But

18:23

there's a lot of rules in a townhouse

18:26

complex or any kind of HOA

18:28

ruled society where

18:30

a homeowner really has to know what's going on

18:32

.

18:33

Yeah , no , I do attend the meetings . I

18:35

am annoying about them because I'm

18:37

a crazy person , I'm a godless

18:39

hippie and they're all old and hate

18:42

me . But it's very important for me

18:44

to explain that , to show up and say , ok

18:46

, it's great that we have this much in reserve and that you're

18:48

actually spending money whenever the shingles flap

18:50

loose . But

18:58

I'm like but have we considered rewilding all the back grass ? You don't want people walking back

19:00

there anyway . Let's just have ankle high , you know , mid-calf high wildflowers anyway

19:03

discourages people from walking and

19:05

we'll save half on our , on

19:07

our lawn care guys . And they're like no

19:09

, you're crazy , you're a hippie , it's wrong , it

19:11

would look so untidy . And I'm like no

19:13

, we just have a field of blue flowers

19:16

, you dorks .

19:18

You know that's tough when you live in it . There's

19:20

good and bad things in an HOA . You

19:22

know , in my neighborhood there is no HOA , so people can

19:24

leave their garbage out all week

19:26

. You know , when there's no rules it

19:29

can be just as bad as when there are rules

19:31

. So it's really just a matter of what you can live with

19:33

.

19:34

Oh yeah , I get that . I get that and I'm

19:36

relatively lucky that I'm not . Again

19:41

, I hear the horror stories from America where it's like , oh , you

19:43

didn't have your recycling bins in within two hours

19:45

. What are you talking about ? What do you

19:47

mean ? You work as a surgeon .

19:50

Yeah , the people that are on those boards are usually

19:52

. Some of them can

19:54

be wound a little tight . So what would be your

19:56

final piece of advice ? Let's give some advice to

19:58

anybody buying a house . We'll

20:02

use this as our , as our topic is a

20:05

flipper did a house and they're selling it to you . What's

20:07

your piece of advice for anybody that's going to

20:09

potentially buy that ?

20:11

Oh , don't be afraid to be mean , do not

20:13

be afraid to be really mean about all

20:15

the things that seem petty . That seem petty

20:17

Like when I sold the complaints I got

20:19

from the buyer felt

20:21

petty and I'm like , no

20:23

, okay , now I get it . Now I

20:25

understand . I mean my house

20:27

wasn't much better shape when I sold it than this

20:29

thing . But

20:32

be mean , don't

20:35

be afraid to be mean and bring your own magnifying glass

20:37

.

20:39

Exactly , don't . If they don't like your

20:41

questions and they don't want to answer , maybe that's not

20:43

the right house for you . Yeah , yeah

20:46

, it's tough , it's tough . Well , hey , I'm sorry for

20:48

what you're going through , but you

20:51

know , good luck . I hope it's almost done

20:53

.

20:53

It's almost done , my heart . We did hardwood

20:55

through the whole house Real hardwood

20:57

, not engineered stuff . A lot

20:59

of buy it for life sort of improvements .

21:02

Well , since you're going to be there for life , that's probably wise

21:04

. Yeah , yeah , exactly All

21:07

right , hey Scott , thanks so much for coming on today

21:09

. Well , thank you

21:11

. All of Scott's contact info is in the show

21:13

notes . I know a lot of you listening have

21:16

experienced all kinds of things as either a

21:18

homeowner or a renter . There's a

21:20

contact form in the show notes . Fill it out

21:22

and send it my way and you could be a

21:24

guest to share your story on

21:26

an upcoming podcast . Thanks for

21:28

taking the time to listen today . I'll

21:30

see you next time .